Lesson 18: The growth and setbacks of socialism

The Growth of Socialist Forces

After the Second World War, some socialist countries emerged in Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America, such as GDR, Yugoslavia and Poland in Eastern Europe, China, North Korea and Vietnam in Asia, and Cuba in Latin America. Socialist forces gradually grew.

In 1949, the Soviet Union established the Committee for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) with Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia and other countries. Through the ECCE, the Soviet Union helped the Eastern European countries overcome their post-war economic difficulties, but it also used the ECCE to integrate the economies of the member states into the Soviet planned economy. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union also strengthened its control over the Communist Parties of the Eastern European countries and carried out an all-round internal transformation of these countries according to the Soviet model.

In 1949, soon after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations with China, which was an important support to the new China. 1950 saw the conclusion of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance, which strengthened the socialist camp. The new China set off a wave of studying the Soviet Union.

Development and Reform of the Soviet Union

In 1953, Stalin died. Soon after, Khrushchev came to power. While criticizing Stalin's personal cult, Khrushchev carried out some economic reforms, such as: launching a land reclamation campaign; developing fodder production and growing corn; abolishing the compulsory delivery system for agricultural products and replacing it with a purchase system; reforming the industrial management system; and so on. However, Khrushchev's reforms did not fundamentally solve the shortcomings of the highly centralized economic system of the Soviet model, and there were serious deviations.

In 1964, Brezhnev came to power. Brezhnev pursued a "new policy" in the economy, which called for accelerating scientific and technological progress, improving the economic management system, and increasing economic stimulus. However, the reforms still did not fundamentally break with the highly centralized planned economy. In order to engage in an arms race with the United States, the Soviet Union focused its scientific and technological progress on the military aspect, and the national economy developed in a perverse manner. The Soviet Union was the world's leading producer of some heavy industrial products and could compete with the United States in conventional weapons, nuclear weapons, and space technology, but its light industrial products and new industries were clearly lagging behind. High input, high consumption and low efficiency became the chronic problems of the Soviet economy.

Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union

In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union. Soon after, he began a program of accelerated economic reforms, but the overall results remained poor until 1988. Gorbachev turned to political reforms, removing the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, introducing a multi-party system, and advocating "openness" and "political pluralism," which led to confusion and anarchy, and the situation quickly spiraled out of control. The trend of secession of the republics also intensified.

After the 1960s, the Eastern European socialist countries had serious political and economic problems. Although some reforms were carried out in each country, the results were not very effective and social contradictions became increasingly acute. In the late 1980s, under the influence of Gorbachev's reforms, Eastern European countries began to implement political pluralism and deny their own history. Since then, the political situation in Eastern Europe has been dramatically turbulent. In just two or three years, the social systems of all Eastern European countries underwent fundamental changes: politically, parliamentary democracy and multi-party system; economically, a market economy based on privatization.

On August 19, 1991, eight senior Soviet Communist Party officials staged a coup d'état in an attempt to preserve the former Union system, but it failed in less than three days. After this event, Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Russian leader Boris Yeltsin took control of the whole situation, and the breakup of the Soviet Union was further accelerated. the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991.

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